Essay about Euthanasia: Suicide and United States

Submitted By anking72
Words: 1493
Pages: 6
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Amanda King
11/9/2012
Persuasive Speech
Saturday, 9 a.m.

Specific Purpose Statement: To persuade my audience to support legislation for legalized euthanasia in the United States.

Central Idea: Legalizing euthanasia should be supported so terminally ill patients can have this option, and my job is to prove to you how much better life would be for people with these diseases with laws in place.

Introduction:

I. I want you to picture yourself in a hospital room; all of your family is with you, and your mother is lying in the hospital bed. She is hooked up to a life support machine and has a feeding tube. She cannot talk, has not woken up in a week, and there is no hope for recovery. She is pumped full of pain medication that just barely takes the edge of her pain away. What would you do? Keep her full of morphine, hooked up to machines that breathe for her and feed her? Or would you want to end her suffering? On Monday, November 12th, it will be eight years since my mother passed away. She was on life support for two weeks before her doctors gave us the choice to either pull the pug or keep her in a persistent vegetative state. She lived on her own for 12 hours after we turned the machines off before her doctor gave her a large dose of morphine “to help ease the pain”. We all knew that she would not be with us much longer after this injection, and we did it because we all knew she was no longer there; we were just keeping her body alive.

II. It is this type of situation that helps me take the stand to make physician assisted suicide legalized in the United States.

III. I have been put through three different situations involving some form of euthanasia since I was 13 years old. This is something that I am extremely passionate about and with my research, I feel that I am well versed enough to speak to you about it today.

IV. I know many of you may believe that having the power to choose when you will die, having a family member or doctor choose for you, goes against the 6th commandment, “Thou shalt not kill”, but please, hear me out on this.

Preview Statement: Today, I will be expressing my opinions and values with you on euthanasia. First, I will talk about what a few problems are, then I will talk about solutions that I feel would greatly help the cause, and finally I will show you a glimpse of what life would be like with my solution in place. First lets start off with The Problem.

Body:

I. The Problem: A. Only God can decide when it is time for a person to die. 1. In the bible, the 6th commandment states “Thou Shalt Not Kill”. a. In the end, a person that has an incurable illness or severe, painful disability, after all alternatives have been thoroughly considered, I believe this person has the right to make a choice to die and that it should be honored. i. This is often the case in many living wills. ii. People should have the right choose to refuse medical treatment or ask for a family member or doctor to help them hasten death. B. From the book series, “Euthanasia: Opposing Viewpoints”, Doctors are fortunate that they can take refuge in the principle of the “double effect doctrine” and write on the death certificate the cause of death. 2. Many of us have heard doctors report that they have, out of compassion and mercy, given heavy doses of morphine to relieve the intolerable distress of patients who are near to an inevitable death, knowing full well that the result will be to hasten the end. b. Somehow, this is all right, since the aim, we say, is to relieve suffering and not to kill. c. It would not be right, however, if doctors did the very same thing with the primary aim of hastening death, while getting the secondary result of comfort.

Transition: Now that I’ve given you a glimpse into a few problems, now I want to share with you my ultimate solution.

II.
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